Manchester City travel to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest on Saturday lunchtime, knowing victory will take them above their opponents and solidify their Champions League place.
The Blues are attempting another revival after a difficult February, but face a tough Forest side who have surprised a lot of people and are attempting to return to European competition for the first time since the 1995/96 season when they reached the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup.
It’s set to be a difficult afternoon and, as usual, our team are here to give us their views and predictions on the match.
Saul
City face a tough Forest side, the good news is they will be ready and mostly all healthy. Haaland needs a big game and expect Marmoush to have a big one too. 3-2 City.
Forest 2-3 City
Will
Goodness knows which City team will turn up against Forest, who remain ahead of the Blues in the table.
Erling Haaland, Omar Marmoush, Ruben Dias, Abdukodir Khusanov and Josko Gvardiol amongst others are all likely to return to the lineup, which I think will just about give City the edge.
Nottingham Forest 0-2 Manchester City
Thomas
It’s off to Forest and a very consequential match in the quest for Champions League qualification. City look to jump ahead of the Trees in the table, and fewer fixtures of late have hopefully helped the squad heal. I feel the ship turning around for a late-season push.
Forest 1-3 City
Pete
This is going to be tough. Forest have turned it around from relegation candidates to Champions League prospects and you don’t do that by sheer luck. Maybe the Forest of old are back, which is good for the league but for today, I’m going for a draw.
Forest 2-2 City
Previous Gut Feelings
Due to being ill, I’ve not been able to get some gut feelings published so I’m a tad behind with everything so here’s a quick summary.
We got it hopelessly wrong against Madrid in both legs. In the 1st leg, Will went for 5-4 so extra points for goal difference, but really should take some off for thinking we’d score five against them. In the return leg, Will got the right score, just the wrong result and Saul got the right number of goals, so a few points each there.
Against Newcastle, Thomas got the right number of goals, while Will went for a crazy 3-3 (although not so crazy considering City’s defence has been worse than a sieve with a hole in it).
We were beaten by Liverpool and Thomas predicted this would happen, but also thought we’d score. We live in strange times. So close though so two points to him.
Will picked up a couple of points for predicting the Blues would win at Spurs and Thomas picked up two points for correctly predicting the number of goals against Plymouth.
I think that’s everything so here’s the table: